Cookin' with Coolio: By the Numbers

As you may recall, rap superstar Coolio has been producing YouTube cooking videos for about a year now, and, like any good online cooking phenomenon, he got a book deal out of it. Cookin' with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price (Amazon) is a collection of fairly basic recipes that remind me of church cookbook dishes, but described in terms that are decidedly not church friendly. Full of tips on how to become a Kitchen Pimp, Cookin' with Coolio is more a novelty read than anything that could be considered truly instructional. Below, we break it down like Coolio: by the numbers. 1, 2, 3, 4...

Number of stars Coolio's food tastes like: 5

Number of stars Coolio's food costs: 1

Number of items in the "pimptry": 28

Number of items a Kitchen Pimp has in his or her Weaponry, including a FryDaddy: 13

Units of measurement used: a "peench," a dime bag, and a nickel bag.

Photograph: Paula Forbes / Eat Me Daily

Number of recipes it will take you to become a "master kitchen pimp": 76

Number of recipes for steak: 8

How long it takes to make "Night-Night Chicken," a casserole for late night drunk munchies: an hour and twenty minutes, if you have everything already "cleaned and chopped in your fridge, like a respectable ghetto gourmet."

How much the "ten droppings" of barbecue sauce for the Swashbucklin' Shrimp equals, in "landlubber" speak: 1/2 cup.

Number of "Cool-Mandments": 10

Number of chefs thou shalt have before Coolio: 0

How much Hennessy you should drink while cooking, for all Coolio cares: a fifth

Photograph: Paula Forbes / Eat Me Daily

Coolioisms

And now, because not everything in life is quantifiable, some of the best quotations from Cooking with Coolio:

"Hell, when I was growing up I could make a meal out of a package of Top Ramen and a bottle of Windex."

"Everything I cook tastes better than yo' momma's nipples."

"I may not be an iron chef, but I'm the only chef with platinum records."

"You can't have your spatulas and your whisks runnin' around like they own the place."

"My marinades add color and flavor so intense that it makes the Mona Lisa look like the Sunday edition of Marmaduke."

"If MacGyver could turn a paper clip and a roll of toilet paper into a Jet Ski, then you can use a slotted spoon to create a breakfast of mass destruction."

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